This Earthly Globe : A Venetian Geographer and the Quest to Map the World
Book Details
Format
Paperback / Softback
ISBN-10
0307743845
ISBN-13
9780307743848
Publisher
Not Stated
Country of Manufacture
GB
Country of Publication
GB
Publication Date
Nov 18th, 2025
Ksh 3,400.00
Not Yet Published
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From the author of the best-selling A Venetian Affair (“A narrative of novelistic resonance . . . Astonishing” —The Washington Post), the story of an Italian Renaissance book editor who introduced European minds to the wider world through his passion for geography
“An extraordinary story that reads more like a thriller than a book about history. A dazzling tale, brilliantly told.” —Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads and The Earth Transformed
In the autumn of 1550, a thick volume containing a wealth of geographical information new to Europeans, with startling woodcut maps of Africa, India and Indonesia, was published in Venice under the title Navigationi et Viaggi (Journeys and Navigations). The editor of this remarkable collection of travelogues, journals and classified government reports remained anonymous. Two additional volumes delivered the most accurate information available at the time on Asia and the “New World.” The three volumes together constituted an unparalleled release of geographical data into the public domain. It was, Andrea di Robilant writes, the biggest Wikileak of the Renaissance.
In This Earthly Globe, di Robilant brings to life not just the palace intrigues, editorial wheedling, delicate alliances and vibrant curiosity that resulted in this coup, but also its mastermind, editor Giovambattista Ramusio. Learned and self-effacing, he gathered a vast array of both popular and closely guarded narratives, from the journals of Marco Polo (he fact-checked them!) to detailed reports on Northern African cultures from the Muslim scholar and diplomat al-Hasan ibn Mohammad al-Wazzan (later known as Leo Africanus). Diverse voices spill out from these chapters as di Robilant recounts how Ramusio pursued the sources, and how he understood both the darker episodes
of “exploration” involving colonial violence and the voyage stories that included accounts of people from African and Asian lands, who had a great deal to share about their cultures. The result is a far-flung and delightful homage to one of the founding fathers of modern geography.
“An extraordinary story that reads more like a thriller than a book about history. A dazzling tale, brilliantly told.” —Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads and The Earth Transformed
In the autumn of 1550, a thick volume containing a wealth of geographical information new to Europeans, with startling woodcut maps of Africa, India and Indonesia, was published in Venice under the title Navigationi et Viaggi (Journeys and Navigations). The editor of this remarkable collection of travelogues, journals and classified government reports remained anonymous. Two additional volumes delivered the most accurate information available at the time on Asia and the “New World.” The three volumes together constituted an unparalleled release of geographical data into the public domain. It was, Andrea di Robilant writes, the biggest Wikileak of the Renaissance.
In This Earthly Globe, di Robilant brings to life not just the palace intrigues, editorial wheedling, delicate alliances and vibrant curiosity that resulted in this coup, but also its mastermind, editor Giovambattista Ramusio. Learned and self-effacing, he gathered a vast array of both popular and closely guarded narratives, from the journals of Marco Polo (he fact-checked them!) to detailed reports on Northern African cultures from the Muslim scholar and diplomat al-Hasan ibn Mohammad al-Wazzan (later known as Leo Africanus). Diverse voices spill out from these chapters as di Robilant recounts how Ramusio pursued the sources, and how he understood both the darker episodes
of “exploration” involving colonial violence and the voyage stories that included accounts of people from African and Asian lands, who had a great deal to share about their cultures. The result is a far-flung and delightful homage to one of the founding fathers of modern geography.
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